Perhaps somewhat unusually, I've
always loved winter fly fishing. Although I don't go
out as much in the winter as I do in more temperate
seasons, I definitely get out more than once or
twice. There are times when winter conditions are
simply too brutal and unsafe to be out on the stream,
and I usually try to work in a few of those days too
just to keep me on my toes. You know how it is.

Normally if it's above twenty-two
degrees I'm fairly comfortable. Years of practice
have helped me figure out what to wear in various
conditions. Generally speaking, I put on everything I
can while still being able to move my arms and legs.
It's not so bad as it sounds. Neoprene was an amazing
invention for people like me.

When I was a kid growing up in
northern Minnesota, we were expected to go out and
play during the winter, just like we did in the other
three seasons. Apparently I still like doing
that.

Winter Comes
Again

This Saturday morning in October,
with a multitude of things that need to be done
around the house, I'm having coffee in the morning
instead, anticipating winter. It's been unusually
cold for the past two weeks, and I should have got
the storm windows on by now. I'm the only resident in
town who actually still has storm windows, and about
this time of year I go through the annual ritual of
taking off the screens and putting on the storms. I
suppose I could have them all converted to
combination windows, but if I did that I wouldn't be
able to afford the split-cane Dickerson 8615 I've
been contemplating, which actually I can't afford
regardless of what I do with the windows. I'm
thinking hard about the two-piece 6wt option, having
read that it would be the only cane rod I'll ever
need. I don't know what I'd do with all the other
cane rods I happen to have if that's the case, though
I'm sure I could figure something out given enough
time and coffee.

Before the Snows

The first trout I caught this
October was an eleven-inch male brookie. It would be
hard to imagine a more beautiful fish. Most brook
trout do not get very big in northeast Iowa streams,
but this fish was unusually plump and heavy for its
length and was a delight to examine before letting it
go. The inside of a male brookie's mouth darkens from
charcoal gray to an almost black during the spawning
season, a not unattractive though decidedly odd
trait. The lower jaw begins to extend outward beyond
the upper too, forming what's called a "kype." They
actually get a bit mean looking come October, though
it's hard to take a mean eleven-inch trout seriously.
The brookie's kaleidescopic spots and markings are
particularly vivid in the fall during spawning and
seem a fitting match to the midwest's panoply of
autumn colors in the trees.

My fish was born in the stream and
not stocked, though there are stocked brookies
elsewhere in northeast Iowa. Brookies are thought to
be native to northeast Iowa, the southwestern-most
section of the Driftless Region, and at least one
stream is believed to hold an extant population of
brook trout that survived our last glacial epoch some
twelve-thousand years a go. In recent years eggs and
milt from adult fish taken from this particular
stream have been nurtured in the Decorah Hatchery to
produce brookies that might thrive well on their own
in other similar streams, carrying forth the old
genetic line and its intrepid survival
characteristics. Such is the hope at any rate.

Even the hatchery-raised brookies
are stunningly colored and it's difficult to tell the
difference between them and feral fish. Sometimes one
notices wear marks on the trout's fins and tail,
which are caused by constant rubbing on the hatchery
vessel's concrete surface. At other times a good
educated guess can be made by simply knowing the
area's streams, especially which ones have not had
brookies stocked in them for a period of years. The
stream I happened to have been fishing has not been
stocked at all for fifteen years or so. It's likely
that a hundred and fifty years ago it was teeming
with brook trout, and brook trout only.

Gazing upstream over the large
slow pool dotted with rising trout, I knew it would
be a tough bet to get one to strike on a dry fly. The
afternoon sun was bright in the sky and most of the
pool was rather shallow, both of which would work
against me. There was a nice Blue Wing Olive hatch in
progress, so in spite of the odds I fired my little
#18 Threadwrap on 6X tippet upstream to a fish that
was rising close to the bank, and that turned out to
be my eleven-inch brookie. I was fishing a Bronson
split-cane rod, which was a bit unusual in itself. I
know there are a few of them out there, but mine is
the only one of its brand I've ever seen. The old
thing did a nice job with the brookie.

Many anglers believe that brook
trout are "dumb," but I like to think of them simply
as being more "eager" than rainbows or browns.